Wilson Virgil Cowan was the youngest son, born on January 12, 1816, to Mr. and Mrs. John and Rachel Cowan in Urbana, Champaign County. According to Sutton’s History of Shelby County, Wilson Cowan traveled to Oxford in 1836 where he attended Miami University and began to study medicine under Dr. James Hughes. However, according to the Catalogue of Officers and Students of the Indiana Theological Seminary and Hanover College 1935-6 he studied there as part of the Academic Department while living in Oxford. Cowan then attended the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati, but before graduating left for Careysville, Ohio in 1841. Somewhere in the following year, he met Ms. Elizabeth M. Kennard of Shelby County and on March 22, 1842, they were married. Wilson Cowan and his young wife lived in Turtle Creek Township near Hardin where Cowan served as the township treasurer until the tragic death of his wife on January 8, 1843.
Wilson Cowan remained as practicing physician in Hardin in 1843 until he finished his last courses at the Medical College of Ohio, where he graduated in 1844. He returned to Hardin and served as postmaster starting May 23, 1844 until June of 1845. On April 10, 1845, Wilson Cowan married Mary Josephine Betts and the two had 6 children together: John Betts, Charles Spinning, Harriet Alice, Marion Finley, Mary Caroline, and Lucinda Frazer. In 1846, he was again serving as physician in Hardin. Mr. Cowan was a very active member of the community and besides being involved as postmaster and physician in Hardin, he also was a Mason and member of Temperance Lodge 73 in Sidney where he served as Worshipful Master from 1852-1853 and 1859-1861. Dr. Cowan also represented Shelby County in state legislature when he served in the lower house of the Ohio General Assembly from 1855-1856.
After the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr. Wilson Cowan felt it his duty to register as a surgeon and first served as Assistant Surgeon under Gen. John C. Fremont with the Benton Cadets (Missouri Infantry) in 1862. According to an account written by his son, Charles S. Cowan, while Dr. Cowan’s company was passing through St. Louis, Missouri on their way home, several of the soldiers and officers purchased pies from an Irish woman’s street stand. Apparently, the woman was sympathetic towards the South and had threatened that she would “do away with some of the Damned Yanks.” The men later found out she had poisoned the pies, and five or six men were killed as a result. Dr. Cowan fell victim to her scheme as well and hovered between life and death for six weeks, managing to survive but never regaining his complete vigor. Upon recuperating from his experience with the pies, Dr. Cowan traveled east to the mountains of West Virginia where he applied to David Todd, Ohio’s War Governor, for an appointment. His new assignment was with the 34th Ohio Infantry, also known as Piatt’s Zouaves after the regiment’s colonel, Abraham Sanders Piatt.
The 34th OVI primarily served in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War and in the Shenandoah Valley region. Their uniforms differed slightly from the traditional in the sense that they wore Americanized Zouave uniforms that consisted of a dark blue jacket with red trimming, sky blue baggy trousers with two red stripes, a pair of tan gaiters, and a red Ottoman style fez hat with a blue tassel, an example of which can be seen to the left. According to an account written by Dr. Cowan’s son, Wilson was surprised and captured by a band of guerillas with his force at Point Pleasant and the surgeon accompanying them forced Dr. Cowan to exchange clothing with him since he had on a new uniform. A short while later, however, reinforcements arrived and helped to recapture the place. Among the prisoners captured was the guerilla surgeon, whom Dr. Cowan again traded clothes with. Dr. Cowan was later transferred to the 1st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry stationed in Tennessee and promoted to Surgeon. After he served there for some time, he was promoted again to Brigade Surgeon, gaining the same rank as a Colonel. He was discharged on February 11, 1864, on account of disability.
After the war was over, Dr. Cowan returned to his home just south of Hardin slightly worse for wear due to the harsh conditions he endured during the war. A short while after his return, he joined with several other members of the Hardin community to break away from the Presbyterian Church in Sidney to create the Turtle Creek Presbyterian Church. It was organized in June of 1865 at the house of William Patton, with Dr. Cowan named one of its Elders. By December of 1865, a brick church was dedicated and ready for use. It was located just north of Hardin Station, most likely beside where Brookside Cemetery still can be found today, since no trace of the physical church remains. This would have also been located right across from Dr. Cowan’s property, just south of Hardin in the northwest corner of the southwest quarter of Section 32.
At the age of 58, Dr. Wilson V. Cowan passed away from pneumonia on March 23, 1874 and was officially laid to rest in Brookside Cemetery, even though he is also listed as being buried with his first wife in Cowan Cemetery. His widow, Mary J. Betts Cowan, moved to Sidney until her death on May 11, 1904, where she was buried with her husband in Brookside Cemetery. Dr. Cowan’s obituary in the Sidney Journal gives a great statement on his life, which reads “In former days he took an active part in politics, and was always identified with the interests, progress, and improvements of the county. He sustained an enviable reputation as a physician, and as a citizen was highly esteemed by all who knew him.” After learning his life story, I believe Dr. Wilson V. Cowan can be considered a contributor to the early part of Hardin’s history and definitely someone whose story is worth hearing!